Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) prediction of bank effects including verification and validation

Restricted waters impose significant effects on ship navigation. In particular, with the presence of a side bank in the vicinity of the hull, the flow is greatly complicated. Additional hydrodynamic forces and moments act on the hull, thus changing the ship's maneuverability. In this paper, computational fluid dynamics methods are utilized for investigating the bank effects on a tanker hull. The tanker moves straight ahead at a low speed in two canals, characterized by surface piercing and sloping banks. For varying water depth and ship-to-bank distance, the sinkage and trim, as well as the viscous hydrodynamic forces on the hull, are predicted by a steady state Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes solver with the double model approximation to simulate the flat free surface. A potential flow method is also applied to evaluate the effect of waves and viscosity on the solutions. The focus is placed on verification and validation based on a grid convergence study and comparisons with experimental data. There is also an exploration of the modeling errors in the numerical method.